Blood, Honey, Salt (Part 4)

Note: This story is part of a series. The previous instalment is here: Part 3

If you haven't read Part One yet, I recommend starting there!

+++++++

Tomorrow: The Scientist’s Daughter

Careful questions lead you to the King’s library, where you find the man you are looking for. He is slowly sorting books and sliding them onto shelves with pained hands.

The place is huge, high-ceilinged and hushed. It smells sweetly of paper, old bindings, and dust.

You beckon him to follow you behind a stack, and show him the key you took from the King. His eyes widen in recognition and fright.

What can he be afraid of? Aerick is dead.

You speak softly, and as always, choose your words with care.

“I visited the bath house.” You don’t say which one, but you watch his face for a reaction. His features remain absurdly still, as if he is trying to prevent himself from reacting at all.

Interesting.

“I saw your book.”

There is a definite flicker in his eyes this time.

“You made a copy.”

I am sure of it.

He goggles at you, his head waggling side to side in horror and protest.

I am certain!

“You will show it to me.”

The panicked guttural noises he makes in response are liable to attract attention. You raise a hand to gesture for silence. He stops abruptly, pulls a roll of parchment towards him and takes a scrap of charcoal from behind his ear. You watch him painstakingly scratch two words:

NO b O O c

Can these be the same hands that made all those reams of delicate, cramped script and finely detailed pictures?

The lumpy fingers are at crooked angles, the joints stiff and unmoving. These are hands long since badly broken and never properly set. Aerick’s cruelty strikes you anew. You find yourself cursing, yet again, the ancient vows that bound you from harming him.

“Excuse me, my lady,” comes a woman’s voice from behind you, “but what do you want? As you can see, this gentleman cannot answer your questions, but maybe I can help you?”

You get the impression of she is well-educated and genuinely eager to assist. Despite her polite manner, unless she knows the man, she will be of little use.

“This man wrote a book. The library may have a copy.”

Her eyes flick to the crude charcoal lettering, and back up to meet yours .

“I will meet you in the apple orchard in one hour. Wait for me on the wooden footbridge.”

The man is shaking his head again. He moves his pained hands in crude gestures, and the woman signs back brusquely and shakes her head.

You meet her eyes and nod.

“One hour.”

When you step outdoors, the cold bites. You feel again the bitter pull towards home - your true home - away from this gods-forsaken, freezing wet rock.

A short walk confirms that there is no one loitering behind a nearby tree to eavesdrop. It would be difficult to do; the trees here are well spaced. She has chosen well. You wait with one hand on your knife, constantly watching for anyone coming or going. Thinking, all the while, about the way they communicated with each other.

What passed between them? Who is she? Who is she to him? They are close.

She is prompt. She speaks just a beat too soon, before she has even stepped close enough to begin the conversation.

“What do you want?”

You keep your voice mild.

“To read a book.”

“Why?”

“Because someone has hurt that man, and other people, and I will get to the bottom of it.”

And because I think the nurse was right. The boy lives. I need to find him.

She is studying you closely. Scowling and distrustful, her arms folded under her breasts.

“Every year the King’s men come and break his hands.”

You’ve long known the King was pitiless and hateful, but the facets of his brutality, the callous thoroughness of it, are like a cold spike in your gut.

“The crime he was accused of must have been heinous.”

“Treason. Heresy. The King calls it a mercy, that he has not been put to death. But it is no mercy.”

“He has not stood fair trial for these charges.”

“No trial at all, fair or else-wise!” she bursts out shrilly. Her lip trembles and her eyes are too bright. She takes a moment to collect herself, and her next words are softer.

“He would not thank you for telling you this, but he is not a wholly innocent man. But he has paid and paid for his wrong! He does not deserve this.”

You already know she is going to tell you. She wants to. She is burning with it… You say nothing and wait for her to fill the yawning silence between you.

“He was a doctor by trade, but a scientist at heart. When his wife suffered complications in childbirth, he could not help her. He lacked the specialist knowledge or skills. He’d sent for a midwife, but it was the dead of winter and she could not reach them. His wife died, and he became obsessed with learning what might have saved her.”

Her voice trickles on, ever more softly. The babe survived, so he paid a woman to nurse it. Once they were modestly clothed and fed, all his resources went to funding his research. He became obsessive about it. He could not attend women, of course - no decent women would tolerate a man present when it was their time. Instead, he paid midwives handsomely to sit for hours and share their knowledge. He filled books and books with thorough notes and intricate sketches.

As the child grew, he could not bear to look at her. She was the spit of her mother, her face a constant reminder of the ignorance that killed the woman he loved. The nurse left, he hired a tutor, and then disappeared again into his study.

He grew frustrated at the limit of what he could learn from theory. He chafed to put his newfound knowledge to practise.

They left the generous house in the quiet countryside. They moved to a much smaller and less pleasant place in the thick of the heaving population around the castle. Here was a steady supply of subjects for him to examine and learn from. “Girls in trouble” he called them. He used them to perfect the techniques he had made so many meticulous notes about. His library grew. When a lass did not make it, there were many things her broken body could still teach him. Eventually, rough men would come to take the body away. Always well-wrapped, always at night. Always when the young girl should have been sleeping. Sometimes those same men brought bodies for the scientist's knife. These were always women, often young, and occasionally big bellied. This last, the most prized and most lucrative. For these, they would sometimes go hungry. Some of them were probably far too fresh.

When he was discovered, he was thrown in prison for his crimes.

Crimes against nature, against the gods, against human decency. He waited to hang… but the King intervened, and said his knowledge could be used in service of the throne. He could redeem himself by availing the King of his services, and in return, the King promised him mercy.

The scientist returned home in the middle of the night, whispering that he was saved. That the King needed his help to secure his lineage, and in return he might be able to expand on his research. When it was done, he would come home and be a doctor again, and all would be well.

He had gone to the castle, with his mysterious bag of tools, a selection of ugly knives, and a fresh journal. Days later, he returned home. Broken, body and soul. Tongueless, his hands poorly bandaged. No way to tell what had befallen him, only a ghastly horror in his eyes and stooped frame.

The only light in the darkness was that no one had bothered to discover the scientist had a daughter. The girl took a job in the castle. Later, she secured a place in the library. She convinced them to hire the man for menial work and a few pennies.

“And now it's done. The King is dead, my father’s findings burnt to ashes, and his voice never to be restored. I know they say it was wrong, but he wanted to help people. He really did. He told you the truth: there is no book.”

Missive: This young woman must be watched. There may well be things she is not telling. Something of the scientist’s works must have survived. After all, she did. Have her followed. The council are no closer to agreeing on an heir. Find the boy.

+++++++

Thank you for reading! The best compliment you can give is to go on to the last part here:

Minor edit to embed the link properly

+++++++